Of all the events taking place at the videogame expo in Philadelphia this past weekend, we were most excited for two in particular listed on the program: Starcraft 2 in playable form and David Jaffe’s promised Skype-call on Saturday afternoon. After we walked over to the LAN area and found out that the promise of Starcraft 2 was a bold-faced lie (“Must be a typo”, says generic VGXPO worker. Right… a typo.), we decided to saddle up and head on over to the theater for the promised David Jaffe call. We arrived to a rather empty auditorium with a few convention-goers pretending to be a panel on the stage. “You’d think more peope would show up for David Jaffe’s speech!”, I foolishly mumbled. “Oh, that’s canceled. We’re just joking around up here.”, one of the faux-panelists said. So what happened? Hit the bump to find out, in Jaffe’s own words, what exactly happened (or rather, didn’t).

“For those wondering where I was this weekend- when I had just posted saying I was going to be making a Skype enabled appearance at the Video Game Expo in Philadelphia- well here is your answer:

I was sitting at home, on my ass, playing some MK vs. DCU and waiting to go virtually on stage.

But then as the minutes ticked by, I started to realize, “Hey, this thing ain’t happening…”

So I went for a walk with the ex-wife to get some coffee and hang out.

Odd thing is,I JUST found out- as in minutes ago, as in TONITE, SUNDAY NITE-that the appearance was officially cancelled an hour (or perhaps just minutes) before it was supposed to occur.

So on my end folks: I had- and still have- no idea what happened.

I had been in very regular contact with the VGXPO people over the last month. Very nice folks, clearly they are interested in putting on a good show and if they continue to want my support in the future, I see no reason to withhold it.

BUT you’d think sometime between last Thursday afternoon (when I first started trying to reach them to get some 411 and confirmation) and, say, 5 minutes before our talk was scheduled to go on, SOMEONE from the show could have called or emailed me to let me know what the fuck was going on.

Alas, it’s Sunday nite at 10 in San Diego and I’ve not heard a word from these guys.

What the fuck.

But I’m sure they cancelled it for a good reason. I know as of Monday, there were some firewall issues we were trying to deal with in order to get the Skype going. So I got no beef with them canceling it. Hell, it’s not like I was gonna get paid for it (I don’t take money for this kind of stuff). My issue is more with: hey, could you guys have fucking given me a heads up? Before you cancelled it? DURING your canceling it? How about over a day AFTER we were scheduled to go on. But alas, nada. Still have not heard word one.

And damn, it’s a good thing I didn’t, you know, have PLANS or anything that I had set aside in order to be there for the dang show. You know, the one I wasn’t getting PAID to do? The one I did for FREE cause I’m a nice guy and thought it would be fun to support a ‘game show for gamers instead of just industry peeps’ kind of deal? Yeah, that one. THAT show. Sheesh.

Anyway, hope no one showed up to see me and was pissed. And hell, I hope everyone involved in putting on my part of the show is ok. Hope no one got sick or anything.

But anyway, there’s the info.”

So there you have it, folks. From Jaffe’s website to your eyes directly, one more account of disappointment from this weekend’s festivities. We here at Geekadelphia can’t wait ’til East Coast PAX 2010!